Several publications and patent documents are referenced in this application in order to more fully describe the state of the art to which this invention pertains. The disclosure of each of these publications and documents is incorporated by reference herein.
Heart failure is causally related to a number of conditions that damage the heart, including coronary heart disease, with or without a heart attack; hypertension; diseases, infections, or toxins that affect the heart muscle; and diseases of the heart valves. The onset of heart failure can occur rapidly, over days to weeks, but more frequently develops slowly over the course of years, as the heart gradually and progressively weakens.
Therapeutic intervention directed to reduction of cancer cell load in a patient frequently, if not always, is accompanied by a range of deleterious side effects. Indeed, cytostatic agents used as chemotherapeutics for the treatment of various cancers frequently exhibit potentially lethal side effects, including cardiotoxicity. Agents commonly used in cytostatic therapy include the anthracyclines daunorubicin and prodrugs thereof, zorubicin, doxorubicin (adriamycin) and epirubicin, and the synthetic antibiotic mitoxantrone. Anthracyclines, for example, represent a class of chemotherapeutic agents based on daunosamine and tetra-hydro-naphthacene-dione. These compounds are used to treat a variety of cancers, including leukemias and lymphomas, and solid tumors of the breast, uterus, ovary, and lung. In addition to the expected adverse reactions observed in patients undergoing chemotherapy, such as hair loss and nausea, therapeutic intervention involving anthracycline administration is complicated and limited by the marked cardiotoxicity of this class of compounds. Cardiotoxicity associated with anthracycline use is correlated with the total dose administered and is frequently irreversible. The cytostatic effects and cardiotoxicity of these compounds are due, at least in part, to alterations in membrane fluidity and permeability caused by anthracycline binding, to components of the cell membrane. Free radical formation in the heart and accumulation of anthracycline metabolites are also thought to contribute to heart damage. Cardiotoxicity often presents in electrocardiogram (EKG) abnormalities and arrhythmias or as cardiomyopathy, which may ultimately lead to congestive heart failure.